Beyond Absurdity

The spectacle of hegemony-driven media coverage has moved beyond absurdity into utter lunacy. This week, our media czars were allegedly concerned that the American electorate might be induced to elect a bully to the highest office in the land, though why this should be considered objectionable in an imperial state more dedicated to bullying than anyone else in the world, remained unexplained.

"Once a bully, always a bully," said Democratic Party lickspittle Paul Begala in TheDailyBeast.com. A front-page story in the Washington Post allegedly raised serious questions about Romney's suitability for the presidency. According to the Post, high-school "prankster" Romney became indignant when an effeminate classmate, John Lauber, appeared at school with bleached hair that hung down over one eye. "He can't look like that," said Romney to his friends. "That's wrong. Just look at him!" So Romney rounded up a posse to hold down the screaming, crying Lauber while Romney cut off the offending locks with a pair of scissors.

Romney's alleged sin is an inability to see the world from any perspective other than his own, which, liberals speculate, may be the reason why he opposes letting gays and lesbians marry their chosen partners.

As usual, annoying factual matters intrude. Are U.S. political leaders commonly noted for their ability to see the world from the perspective of others? Obviously not. President John Kennedy nearly blew up the planet due to his inability to see that Cubans couldn't accept being continually threatened with invasion, occupation, and regime change. Nixon, LBJ, and, in fact, the entire American political class, were blind to the legitimacy of Vietnam expelling the United States from its country, at a staggering cost in human life. Bush could not see why Iraq had a right not to be invaded and Obama can't fathom why Pakistani sovereignty shouldn't be continually outraged by pilotless drone attacks. And, of course, Washington's murderous contempt for the legally elected Palestinian government of HAMAS demonstrates with utter clarity that bullying is as American as Coca Cola.

See the world from the perspective of others? Where was this concern when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was openly insulted by Columbia university president Lee Bollinger on a visit to the U.S.? For questioning deeply treasured dogmas about Israel and the Holocaust Ahmadinejad was treated with undisguised contempt. U.S. blindness on that occasion was total. When Ahmadinejad made the obvious point that Iranian society has no Gay Liberation culture such as exists in the U.S., he was jeered at on the false pretext that he had outright denied the existence of homosexuality. Not one voice in the corporate media demonstrated any ability to see a point of view beyond Israel-first hysteria.

"He can't look like that," said Romney of his victim. And today, our leaders shout in unison, "They can't govern like that!" when a handful of states defies the consensus of the powerful. Romney formed a posse; Washington summons NATO for a "humanitarian" bombing.

The issue, however, is not a "compassion deficit," as the brainless babblers in the U.S. media would have it. The issue is the presumed democratic legitimacy of a U.S. political elite bound and determined to shove right-wing politics down the throat of an increasingly social democratic world. This elite has plenty of compassion for plundering investment firms deemed "too big to fail." What it lacks is sanity. Legalienate recommends it have its collective head examined, if an exceptionally talented proctologist can be found to do the job.